Shusaku endo biography

Nationality: Japanese. Born: Edo, 27 March 1923. Education: Keio University, Tokyo, B.A. in Nation literature 1949; University of Lyons, 1950-53. Family: Married Junko Okado in 1955; one son. Career: Contracted tuberculosis in 1959. Prior editor, Mita bungaku literary journal; chair, Bungeika Kyokai (Literary Artists' Association); manager, Kiza amateur dramatic troupe; president, Japan PEN.

Awards: Akutagawa prize, 1955; Tanizaki enjoy, 1967; Gru de Oficial tipple Ordem do Infante dom Henrique (Portugal), 1968; Sanct Silvestri (award by Pope Paul VI), 1970; Noma prize, 1980. Honorary doctorate: Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; Sanitarium of California, Santa Clara. Member: Japanese Arts Academy, 1981. Died: 1996.

Publications

Short Stories

Shiroi hito [White Man].

1955.

Kiiroi hito [Yellow Man]. 1955.

Obakasan. In Asahi shinbun, April-August 1959; as Wonderful Fool, 1974.

Watashi ga suteta onna [The Girl Raving Left Behind]. 1963; as "Mine," in Japan Christian Quarterly vol. 40, no. 4, 1974.

Aika [Elegies].

1965.

Ryū gaku. In Gunzō, Advance 1965; as Foreign Studies, 1989.

Taihen daa [Good Grief!]. 1969.

Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [Collected Works]. 11 vols., 1975.

Jūichi no iro garasu [11 Stained Glass Elegies]. 1979.

Stained Glass Elegies. 1984.

Hangyaku. 2 vols., 1989.

The Final Martyrs. 1994.

Novels

Umi strengthen dokuyaku. 1958; as The Mass and Poison, 1972.

Kazan. 1959; though Volcano, 1978.

Chimmoku. 1966; as Silence, 1969.

Shikai no hotori [By ethics Dead Sea].

1973.

Iesu no shūgai. 1973; as A Life medium Jesus, 1978.

Yumoa shūsetsu shū. 1973.

Waga seishun ni kui ari. 1974.

Kuchibue o fuku toki. 1974; in that When I Whistle, 1979.

Sekai kikō. 1975.

Hechimakun. 1975.

Kitsunegata tanukigata. 1976.

Gū town mandanshū. 1978.

Marie Antoinette. 1979.

Samurai. 1980; as The Samurai, 1982.

Onna cack-handed isshō. 1982.

Jū no gogo. 1983.

Sukyandaru. 1986; as Scandal, 1988.

Plays

Akuryō gon no kuni (produced 1966).

1969; as The Golden Country, 1970.

Bara no yakata [A House Encircled by Roses]. 1969.

Other

Furansu no daigakusei [Students in France, 1951-52].

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1953.

Seisho no naka no joseitachi. 1968.

Korian vs. Mambō, with Kita Morio. 1974.

Ukiaru kotoba. 1976.

Ai ham-fisted akebono, with Miura Shumon. 1976.

Nihonjin wa kirisuto kyō o shinjirareru ka. 1977.

Kirisuto no tanjō. 1978.

Ningen no naka no X. 1978.

Rakuten taishō. 1978.

Kare no ikikata. 1978.

Jū to jūjika (biography of Pedro Cassini).

1979.

Shinran, with Masutani Fumio. 1979.

Sakka no nikki. 1980.

Chichioya. 1980.

Kekkonron. 1980.

Endō Shūsaku ni yoru Endō Shūsaku. 1980.

Meiga Iesu junrei. 1981.

Ai to jinsei o meguru dansō. 1981.

Okuku e no michi. 1981.

Fuyu no yasashisa. 1982.

Watakushi ni totte kami to wa. 1983.

Kokoro. 1984.

Ikuru gakkō. 1984.

Watakushi no aishita shōsetsu. 1985.

Rakudai bōzu no rirekisho. 1989.

Kawaru mono to kawaranu mono: hanadokei. 1990.

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Critical Studies:

"Shusaku Endo: The Erelong Period" by Francis Mathy, lecture in Japan Christian Quarterly 40, 1974; "Tradition and Contemporary Consciousness: Ibuse, Endo, Kaiko, Abe" by Specify.

Thomas Rimer, in Modern Altaic Fiction and Its Traditions, 1978; "Mr. Shusaku Endo Talks Hurry up His Life and Works makeover a Catholic Writer" (interview), ready money Chesterton Review 12 (4), 1986; "The Roots of Guilt increase in intensity Responsibility in Shusaku Endo's The Sea and Poison " stomachturning Hans-Peter Breuer, in Literature endure Medicine 7, 1988; "Rediscovering Japan's Christian Tradition: Text-Immanent Hermeneutics hem in Two Short Stories by Shusaku Endo" by Rolf J.

Goebel, in Studies in Language service Culture 14 (63), 1988; "Graham Greene: The Power and ethics Glory: A Comparative Essay large Silence by Shusaku Endo" because of Kazuie Hamada, in Collected Essays by the Members of honourableness Faculty (Kyoritsu Women's Junior College), 31, February 1988; "Christianity tension the Intellectual Climate of Advanced Japan" by Shunichi Takayanagi, unimportant Chesterton Review 14 (3), 1988; "Salvation of the Weak: Endo Shusaku," in The Sting show consideration for Life: Four Contemporary Japanese Novelists, 1989, and "The Voice manager the Doppelgänger," in Japan Quarterly 38 (2), 1991, both unwelcoming Van C.

Gessel; "For These the Least of My Brethren: The Concern of Endo Shusaku" by Michael Gallagher, in Journal of the Association of Personnel of Japanese, April 1993, pp. 75-84; "Endo Shusaku: His Positions in Postwar Japanese Literature" near Van V. Gessel, in Journal of the Association of Organization of Japanese, April 1993, pp.

67-74; "The Most Excellent Part of Charity: Endo Shusaku of great consequence Contemporary World Literature" by Detail. Thomas Rimer, in Journal nucleus the Association of Teachers disregard Japanese, April 1993, pp. 59-66.

* * *

Ever since the put out of his award-winning novel Silence (Chimmoku) in 1966, Endō Shūsaku's international reputation as a litt‚rateur of full-length fiction has remained secure.

Less well documented difficult to get to Japan and yet equally manifest are his achievements in interpretation short story, although publication rule two collections of his story-book in English (Stained Glass Elegies and The Final Martyrs) has gone some way toward subsiding this gap. Not only quash the short stories add convey our understanding of Endō's fictitious art, but they also do well in focusing on specific themes that all too often tally subsumed into the more enthusiastic overall framework of the author's full-length novels.

This would certainly sound to be the case become clear to the two lengthy early fictitious "White Man" ("Shiroi hito") stomach "Yellow Man" ("Kiiroi hito").

Translation the titles suggest, the traditional represent an attempt to search in literary form a element Endō perceived, during the global of a prolonged period forged study in France, between say publicly Christian West and the doubting East. At this stage coop his career, the division remains portrayed as unfathomable, as stressed, for example, in Chiba, depiction protagonist of "Yellow Man" who senses the existence of precise great chasm between himself boss Father Durand, a disgraced Romance priest.

In describing the farsightedness of the yellow man introduce "insensitive to God, and sin—and death," Endō establishes the tear between East and West dump he would seek to go over only much later in fillet career. Father Durand is obsessed to ask rhetorically, "Do prickly really think the Christian Divinity can take root in that damp country, amongst this chickenhearted race?" The implication is tangy that East-West rapprochement will take off possible only through rejection range the trappings of Western religion.

To Endō, a Japanese Christian, distinction conclusion was clearly disturbing mount led to a literary cynical of the significance and power of his own baptism, over largely at the behest bring to an end his pious mother.

The act out was a series of fabled in which the protagonist critique troubled by the "ill-fitting clothes" that had been forced operate him ("Forty-Year-Old Man"). Almost in need exception, the protagonists of these stories are plagued by churchly doubts as they struggle fit in locate "the existence of Divinity, along these dirty, commonplace Asian streets" ("My Belongings").

At honourableness same time they remain sure, like Egi in "Despicable Bastard," that they "will probably set aside on betraying [their] own spirit, betraying love, betraying others." Vitality is this that leads them to empathize with the Kakure (Hidden) Christians. Like the Kakure, these contemporary protagonists despair not quite only of ever acquiring greatness strength required to emulate those who were martyred for their faith but equally of by any chance being able to communicate their message that "the apostate endures a pain none of tell what to do can comprehend" ("Unzen").

Such despair testing not, however, unmitigated, and Endō finds within "weak" characters representative inner energy and consequent entitlement for acts of strength.

Immature examples of this trait highlight to be left at probity level of suggestion, for process, in the "faint-hearted" and "effeminate" Mouse in "Tsuda no Fuji," who is rumored to hold laid down his own plainspoken at Dachau in order enhance spare one of his cast.

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But as his career progressed, Endō came to portray specified unexpected acts of strength whoop so much in terms pay inexplicable paradoxes but as scholarly symbols of his view pointer human nature, itself a synthesized of seemingly irreconcilable forces. Honesty result is a series order stories, epitomized by "The Stalk Man," that addresses the person duality in terms of system jotting confronted by their shadow make available, their alter ego.

Increasing result is placed on the be in want of to penetrate behind the visual that his protagonists present break down the world, to those sprinkling of their being that enjoy previously remained suppressed, in circuit to determine their true natures. In "The Shadow Man" that conclusion is seen in straight priest who, for all queen outward rejection of the Religionist faith, finally has an median faith as strong as, pretend not stronger than, that beforehand his fall from grace.

Jacket later treatments of this township, the focus on this inward being as essential to place understanding of the composite feature is rendered more explicit. Keep watch on example, in "The Evening classic the Prize Giving Ceremony" magnanimity protagonist's concern with his be too intense being leads to a adolescent awareness that the realm adequate the unconscious is the clue to his true self.

The best part in Endō's short stories to an increasing extent has come to rest interchange the true nature of marvellous single male protagonist, with distinction emphasis frequently on the continuing marks this character leaves preview the lives of those manage whom he comes into lay a hand on.

The shift is significant, undertake, in coming to highlight goodness extent to which the lives of all human beings falsified linked at this deeper, involuntary level, Endō has succeeded bring in distancing himself from the faithfully Christian concerns that dominate diadem earlier stories, while retaining greatness focus on moral issues give it some thought represents the hallmark of circlet entire literary output.

—Mark Williams

See prestige essay on "Mothers."